Captive of the Viking

by Juliet Landon

  She could, hard against her womb. ‘Yes,’ she said, trembling.

  ‘I shall not force you,’ he said. ‘That’s never been my way. I can wait.’ With the pad of his thumb he wiped away the single teardrop from the corner of her green eye. ‘I’ll be back before supper. Don’t go away. You hear me?’

  ‘Yes, I hear you.’

  ‘Deena will prepare it. The kitchen is outside. Go and take a look round.’

  She nodded, then he was gone.

  It was some time before she could rouse herself, wondering how it might have been and for how long she would be able to hold him off. Their room was not dark, lit by what at home they called ‘a wind eye’, cut in the wall with a wooden shutter like an eyelid which could be opened and closed with a rope pulley. Outside this, the shingled wooden roof overhung the walls all round to make a dry walkway where, in bad weather, the animals and hens took shelter. She wondered why Olof and Wenda had not built their house in the same way, with the kitchen outside and a covered pathway between. Looking round outside with Haesel, they saw that there were storerooms with fish drying on racks and hams hanging from the ceiling, sacks of grain ready for grinding and boxes of spices imported from foreign lands.

  They discovered two more slaves, one a young man named Ivar, who did the heavy work, and a girl of Haesel’s age named Eve, a Christian brought from Cornwall who spoke a dialect they had difficulty in understanding. Such a pity, Fearn and Haesel agreed, that people should be owned by others to do with as they wished, but how far was these people’s plight from her own and how much better had they been before? Thinking of her own life as the wife of a brute and the daughter-in-law of a scold, not to mention the father who had given her away, perhaps her own degree of slavery was preferable, in many ways.

  * * *

  Aric strode on towards his uncle’s house, half-closing his eyes against the bright glare of the sun on the fjord where, in the distance, the small island of Egholm lay like a green-herb pancake. His uncle was expecting him and, as Aric had anticipated, his uncle’s sister Astrid, too, a woman of mature years and huge self-importance. They were waiting for him, leaning on the gate to the paddock where a herd of beautiful riding horses cropped the grass. ‘Took your time, young man,’ Uncle Uther said, taking the stem of hay out from between his lips and looking Aric up and down as if he knew exactly what his nephew had been doing.

  ‘Aunt Astrid,’ Aric said, kissing her cheek dutifully. Her skin was as wrinkled and as brown as old parchment, her white hair scraped back tightly from her face and tied securely in a knot. Loaded with brooches, necklaces, arm-rings and bracelets, the impression was one of high status and wealth, which was not far from the truth, but had never intimidated her jarl nephew. ‘Are you well?’ he said.

  ‘No. I’m getting old and my legs ache. What’s all this about a woman? You were supposed to be bringing your nephew back with you, not an earl’s daughter. Did you not manage to find him?’

  Aric leaned on the gate beside his aunt, who had never married and who had taken over the role of matriarch in her widowed brother’s household, having simply marched in one day with all her belongings, whether Uther and his daughter liked it or not. They had not dared to argue. ‘I did find him,’ Aric said. ‘He’s a handsome lad, being fostered by Earl Thored’s man and his wife. And perfectly happy.’

  ‘Well, he may be,’ said Aunt Astrid, ‘but his family are not. This is where he belongs. We thought you understood that.’

  ‘Couldn’t keep his mind on the job with that skew-eyed young thing there,’ Uther said, sourly. ‘She’s charmed him all right. And what about my Freya? How do you think she likes it? Eh?’

  Again, Aric ignored his uncle’s bitterness. ‘I do understand,’ he said. ‘I have brought her away for one year, that’s all. I shall take her back after that and bring Kean home with me. They know that. It’s expected. It gives the lad time to make adjustments. Besides that, it pays Earl Thored back for taking Tove and having her man killed. He has my nephew and I have his daughter. That’s a just revenge.’

  ‘Aye,’ Uther said, spitting a sliver of hay out of his mouth, ‘and I suppose you think it gives you nice time to do with her what bloody Thored did to our Tove, do you?’

  Aric had had enough of his uncle’s insinuations. ‘Uncle, I think that my plans are my own business, not yours. You can suppose what you like, but I have my own good reasons for doing what I did. Kean will come to live here with my sister and her family eventually, but if you insist on trying to arrange everyone’s lives for them, don’t be surprised if they object. I am a king’s jarl now, Uncle. No one but the King may tell me who to marry or, for that matter, who I take to my bed.’

  ‘Hmm!’ Astrid murmured, glancing at her brother’s glowering profile. ‘There now. That’s you told. So, Jarl Aric, may one venture to ask what your plans are for your cousin Freya? Does she continue to hope, after a year of waiting for you, or does she start to look elsewhere?’

  But before Aric could answer, his uncle slapped a hand down hard on the gate. ‘Freya goes with the farm, Astrid! I’ve told you that. It’s his for the asking, but he’ll have to take Freya as well. It’s her home. It’s what she wants.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Aric said.

  ‘Because I do. You grew up together. She’ll make you a good wife.’

  ‘And if I don’t make her a good husband, what then?’

  ‘Argh! Men have their diversions, we all know that. The woman from England is not going to make a fuss, is she, not just for a year, and I don’t suppose Freya would, either. She knows you’ve had women.’

  ‘I’ve heard enough!’ Astrid snapped, pushing herself away from the gate. ‘I sometimes wonder what you’ve got between your ears, Uther Borgsen, when you can knowingly put your own daughter into that kind of situation. A minute ago you asked him how he thought Freya might like him having another woman in his bed and now you’re urging him to go ahead and do just that. Don’t tell me this is all about the stud farm, Uther. Where is she?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Freya, of course!’

  ‘She’s...er...around somewhere.’

  ‘Huh!’ Astrid marched off, limping a little whenever she remembered.

  Uther sighed, heavily. ‘Tell me about this woman of yours,’ he said. ‘And tell me about young Kean, too. Does he resemble his mother?’

  * * *

  Together, Fearn and Haesel explored the large plot of land on which Aric’s house stood, soon realising that it was indeed the largest and grandest in Lindholm with not only more cultivated land, but also the houses of Aric’s tenants, each with a vegetable plot attached. Beyond that was a patch of woodland from where the villagers had obtained their timber, but which was sure to be the source of berries, nuts and mushrooms, so necessary to Fearn for supplementing meals and for healing, too.

  ‘Let’s take a look,’ Fearn said. ‘We may find something we need to start a new stock of herbs. I can already see elder and hawthorn and rowan, and there are brambles for blackberries and—’

  ‘Shh! Wait!’ Haesel whispered. ‘Look, over there.’

  Fearn looked where the maid pointed, keeping the thick trunk of an oak tree between her and two figures walking one behind the other, stealthily, their hands linked like lovers. ‘It’s Freya,’ she whispered, feeling her heart begin to hammer as she saw how a narrow shaft of sunlight caught the fair hair of the man who led her into the woods. ‘But who’s the man? Can you see?’

  ‘Yes,’ Haesel said. ‘You know him. Remember the one who tried your circlet on and teased you to get it? The Jarl knocked him over.’

  ‘Him!’

  ‘Yes, that’s him all right. His name is Loki. Did you think it might be...?’

  Fern nodded, riveted by the sight of Freya, Aric’s sweet cousin, stealing a few precious moments alone with one fo
r whom she had waited a whole year while he was in England and while Aric assumed she was waiting for him. Knowing they ought to turn away to respect the lovers’ privacy, they remained instead like statues to watch how Loki turned to catch her in his arms, bending her body, their fair heads merging into one blond mass. Then, as they watched, the lovers sank down into the soft litter of the woodland and disappeared behind a huge clump of ferns, and Fearn found that she was trembling with a relief she could not begin to understand. ‘Let’s go back,’ she whispered. ‘We have some unpacking to do.’

  Chapter Six

  Aware that the discovery of Freya’s secret lover must not be allowed to influence her attitude to Aric, Fearn found that she could think of no good reason why it changed anything, only that, in some way, it did. She could not say why she was relieved, but then spent the next few moments imagining an unwilling Freya in the arms of her cousin, loving another man but being pressured into obedience to her father. Despite the lip service to women’s choice in who to marry, the facts were often quite the opposite, as she knew from personal experience. Poor Freya. What a dilemma she faced. As for Aric’s reaction to Freya’s preference for one of his own men, that would be hard to imagine, but whether he would insist on marrying his cousin in order to acquire her father’s stud farm was a question she could not even guess at. He had not been named ‘the Ruthless’ without good reason, so much was certain, having seen and experienced that particular trait for herself.

  He had taken her up to the top of the hill that evening from where they could see the settlement of Lindholm extending down to the fjord, each plot neatly fenced and tended. The hillside itself was the burial ground for countless ancestors, each cremation enclosed by stones, triangular, circular and boat-shaped, casting long shadows in the evening sunlight. Sand blew in from the shore like a fine veil meant to conceal them, silently gathering around their feet, and although Fearn knew she was meant to admire the views of the flat, lush fields and sparkling water, it was the stealthy encroachment of sand that made a more lasting impression.

  To her relief, she had been allowed to sleep with Haesel that night, finally to catch up on those hours of wakefulness.

  * * *

  Refreshed and washed in clear water from the well, they relished the touch of dry linen on their skins, dry shoes on their feet, hair silky and clean. Then, by themselves, they went to the house of Olof and Wenda, reasonably optimistic about the child’s progress and relieved to enter an almost smokeless room where work was in progress above their heads to remedy the problem. Through the door at the far end, they could hear squeals of laughter as Kol played his own version of skittles with his two older brothers while his doting mother leaned on the doorframe smiling encouragement, her spindle whizzing on a long thread.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Fearn and Haesel sauntered away with Olof, who had climbed down the ladder to tell them more of Kol’s miraculous recovery and the first night’s sleep he’d had in three years. It was, he told them, entirely due to whatever kind of magic Fearn had worked. She had been sent by the gods.

  Fearn let the reference to magic go. ‘I had not realised,’ she said, ‘that Kol was your wife’s first child. Perhaps it was some sound advice she lacked, more than anything?’

  Olof stopped, not wanting to go beyond the plot. ‘He’s her first child with me,’ he said. ‘Kol is her second. She had a previous relationship.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve got it wrong, haven’t I? May I ask what happened?’

  Sadly, he shook his head, looking beyond her. ‘She was not married at the time and the father would not accept it.’

  ‘Not accept his own child? Why ever not?’

  ‘It had a deformed foot, for one thing and, for another, it was a girl. He said it could not be his. He said it should be exposed. Left out to die.’

  A shiver of cold horror wrapped around Fearn’s shoulders like an icy blanket while, beside her, Haesel let out a wail of anguish, stifled in her hands.

  Olof noted their reaction, but went on with the terrible saga. ‘She had no choice, poor woman. Her father agreed. He didn’t want her and her deformed child living with them any more than the child’s father did. They took it from her. Days old, it was. She nearly went mad with grief. I’d lost my wife a year earlier, so I took Wenda to live with me and the boys. They needed a woman and so did I. And I thought the lads would be good for her. Then Kol came along and she was so...well...possessive, you might say. Wouldn’t let him alone. Wouldn’t let him go outside. Cossetted him till...well...you’ve seen. If you’d not talked some sense into her, lady, the lad would have died. You wouldn’t think her own father would be so uncaring, would you? But he was. A hard man, that one.’

  ‘That’s Aric’s father. So...he died?’

  ‘Aye, soon after I took her in. He’s up there on the hillside.’

  Aric had not identified the particular boat-shaped stones where his father was, but Fearn had seen him hesitate, then move on. ‘And their mother?’ she said.

  ‘She divorced him when Aric and Wenda and Tove were young. Went off to live in Iceland. Made a new life for herself. He’s not told you?’

  ‘Aric? No, to be fair, I’ve never shown any interest. It doesn’t concern me.’ She spoke the words with a certain defiance although they were not altogether true. It concerned her very much that he had been brought up to believe that such appallingly cruel practices were acceptable methods of dealing with deformity and unwanted girls. Did he still believe that? she wondered.

  ‘Where did they take it?’ she said. ‘The infant.’

  ‘Up there, in the cemetery. It disappeared.’ Olof was reluctant to go into any more detail, so omitted to tell her how the woman he had come to love had had to be forcibly restrained from running after them to find her child. It was a dark period of their lives that would never be erased from their memories.

  Fearn wondered what effect the tragedy had had on Aric, abandoned by his mother, a witness to the mental distress of his sister, the loss of an older sister and then the loss of his fearsome father. And in spite of all that, he had shown himself to be capable of leading men in the King’s following and had been created Jarl, with all the many responsibilities and benefits that went with the position. How could she not spare just a small measure of admiration for such a man? If she had not been abducted by him and forced into this humiliating position, she would have done so but, as it was, her anger was still too raw to listen to anything like reason. It was her body’s responses that were refusing to conform, for now she could no longer deny watching for his shadow to fall across the doorway, hearing his voice in the yard or hall, or watching his movements while pretending to do just the opposite.

  * * *

  Partly to boost her hostility again after those moments of more tender reflection, she took advantage of his presence in the yard where he held a beautiful filly by her halter while talking to one of the grooms. Dismissing the man as she approached, he fondled the filly’s velvet nose and waited for Fearn to speak, but when she did not, he saw that her eyes were troubled. ‘What is it, lady? Is the child not improved?’

  ‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘Kol is quite recovered. Wenda cannot thank me enough. Olof believes the gods sent me. They didn’t. It was partly the smoke and partly your sister’s over-protectiveness after the loss of her child.’

  ‘Ah! So she told you.’

  ‘No, Olof did. I wonder why you did not. It might have helped.’

  The hand continued to fondle while the filly rolled her eyes at the intruder. ‘The short answer to that,’ he said, ‘is that we...you and I...haven’t yet reached a position when we can talk about ourselves, have we? You are too angry to ask anything and I am waiting for you to soften some more.’ He noted the way her eyes swung away from his. ‘Just in case you bite my hand off.’ He smiled. ‘You tried once
, remember? Once bitten, twice shy.’

  ‘I need to know,’ she said, ‘whether you still approve of exposing unwanted babies. I find the practice barbaric, and totally unnecessary.’

  ‘It was not up to me to approve or disapprove,’ he said, softly. ‘It was my father’s decision and the man Wenda claimed had fathered it. He denied it was his.’

  ‘But it was, wasn’t it? Olof believed her.’

  The filly tossed her head at the sharp tone. ‘Shh!’ Aric said. ‘I’ve told you, it was not my business and I was not able to influence my father’s decision. It’s not unusual here to reject girl infants, lady. They’re not as useful as boys, and dowries are expensive. And what chance would Wenda alone have had to provide a dowry for a lass with a twisted foot? Who would...? Fearn...?’

  Her name was flung after her as she stalked away into the house, her eyes blazing, her mind wondering, not for the first time, about the kind of God who allowed such things to happen to women and about the kind of society who saw the arrival of new life in terms of usefulness and cost. In her chamber, she found Haesel sitting on a three-legged stool, holding her head in her hands and sobbing as if her heart would break. Placing her hand upon her maid’s back, Fearn had no need to ask what the matter was, for Haesel, too, was feeling the mother’s breaking heart, the helplessness against men’s decisions, the senseless waste of life after months of hope. Fearn drew her maid up to clasp her in her arms. Was it better, she wondered, to remain childless than to see a life squandered so needlessly?

  * * *

  Aric ran a hand over the filly’s satin chestnut back, then led her to the field and let her run. The conversation with Fearn had not been comfortable, for he suspected that his views on exposure were important to her not only for Wenda’s sake, but for her own, too. It was only natural, he supposed, when he had made it clear to her that, as his woman, she would share his bed to a more intimate degree than she had so far. On the other hand, he told himself, her two-year marriage had produced no child, for whatever reason, so why should she think he would be more successful? Unless, of course, the problem had been her husband’s, not hers. The question was not a simple one to answer and only time would tell. Even so, he regretted stretching the truth about his failure to involve himself in Wenda’s tragedy. She had looked up to him and he had failed her.